Monday, November 2, 2015

A couple months ago I shot some video of my method of repairing the broken hinges on my Toshiba L55t laptop computer and only recently got it edited and uploaded to YouTube. At the time it was about 9 months old. The hinges broke free from their mounting points inside the LCD panel. When opening or closing the lid, the torque on the hinges would pop open the corners of the LCD panel.

Opening the panel, I found that the hinges were fastened to the plastic back shell of the LCD panel by several threaded brass inserts that were pressed into plastic rings, each ring having several tiny radial supports. They broke completely free and when I opened the panel, the screw, nut, and surrounding plastic just fell out. This is a faulty design that clearly is not strong enough to withstand even the force of normal usage.

I repaired the hinges by totally disassembling the laptop and LCD panel, gluing the brass insert nuts back in position with superglue and then surrounding them with epoxy for support. Last, I filled the whole area where the hinge attaches with additional epoxy before screwing the hinges back in place.

Part One of the video contains a discussion of the problem, and shows the disassembly of the laptop and my preparations for the repair.

Part Two shows the repair process and reassembly of the panel and laptop.

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